Kerelan Backwaters and Amma's Ashram

A group of us made friends and decided to travel together to the Amma Ashram to hopefully get one of the famous hugs from Kerela's resident saint. If you haven't heard of Amma (http://www.amritapuri.org/), she is really remarkable. Her hugs are supposed to fill you with positive energy and be healing, and she also has a huge charitable organization that does a lot to help India's poor. For example, she was able to mobilize over $22 million to help the tsunami victims in India, and has built over 10,000 houses around India to shelter the homeless. The trip to the ashram was through the Kerelan backwaters, which is a lovely journey through inland water channels. It reminded me of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, though that was a little more wild (and a bit like Hong Kong harbor, Mark, they had... HOUSEBOAT! HOUSEBOAT!).



The ashram itself is very large (around 3,000 people are staying there at any one time and every day it looks like maybe 50 people were arriving). And this was the off season - we got the dates wrong and Amma was not there right now (she's off hugging in Europe). There is a nice Hindu temple in the middle, but many of the buildings look like public housing apartments. When Amma is in residence, there are many more people there and tons of classes and things to do (yoga, massage, aryuvedic healing, music lessons). But many things shut down when she is away and the crowds are not there. I found the people that lived and worked there to be clearheaded, lovely people, who were quite helpful. Many of the guests though had a funky energy - very sad people coming to have Amma save them. From everyone I've talked to, including Gina, Amma is the real deal - someone with almost boundless love for humanity, but you have to wade through many of her followers to reach this love. She is supposed to be back on Dec. 8th and I may stop by and get in the hug line if it works in my schedule.

I was still in the mood for something mellow and quiet after my meditation retreat, so I cut the ashram visit short and headed up to Munnar, which is at the center of Kerela's tea plantation industry up in the mountains. It's beautiful and green up here, and also cooler. Just arrived last night so I'm off to explore the area now...